The subject of this patent application for an industrial invention is a light device to be mounted on a bottle of wine in order to verify the possible presence inside it of solid deposits or other impurities.
It is not uncommon for certain wines, particularly red wines subjected to aging, to produce solid deposits in the form of small irregular fairly dark colored plates.
As long as a bottle of such a wine remains in an upright position, the aforesaid deposits tend to lie on the bottom of the bottle; however, the turbulence created inside the bottle during wine decanting agitates said solid deposits causing the particles to become suspended in the wine.
This circumstance naturally calls for a considerable amount of caution during the wine decanting in order to prevent particles from becoming carried into the glass. It is evident, in fact, that the presence in the glass of such particles significantly compromises the appearance of the wine itself (which is so important to connoisseurs); destroys the taste and spoils the enjoyment, particularly when the person holding the glass is not aware of their presence.
The method that is commonly used today to prevent said solid deposits from being decanted along with the wine is to avoid pouring out the last amount of the wine contained in the bottle. In this manner one seeks to avoid these turbulences near the bottom of the bottle, the most vulnerable area since it is most likely to cause agitation of the said solid particles.
Given these considerations, it is desirable to know before decanting a bottle whether or not the wine inside it contains the solid particles in suspension. This determination would dictate the way in which manner the decanting is to be done.
In the absence of deposits, all the wine may be poured out entirely and quickly. On the other hand, if the deposits are present, the wine must be poured very slowly and the bottle must not be completely emptied.
In practice, however, determination of the presence of possible solid particles remains complicated due to the fact that today all the highly esteemed wines are bottled in dark glass. This circumstance makes it fairly difficult to actually determine with certainty whether or not the wine contains solid particles in suspension.
In order to make such verification today, a bottle of wine is usually held up to an artificial light source or to the sun. It should be noted in the regard that this type of verification is rather empirical and its results are approximate. Also, it cannot easily be performed during the operation of pouring the wine into a glass to monitor decanting process.
Sometimes, the flame of a candle is placed next to a bottle during the decanting operation. However, the flame presents the disadvantage of blackening the glass of the bottle; and it requires skill to decant with a candle.
It is also important to note that while the need to ascertain the possible presence of impurities and solid particles in suspension is manifested primarily with reference to red wines, it is nonetheless true that at times there could be an interest in performing the same type of examination on white wines, particularly in dark glass bottles. This is true despite the fact that the probability of the formation of deposits or impurities in white wine is lower than in aged red wines.